Laughter in the Darkness

Last night I was finding it hard to get to sleep as usual so I decided to go on Facebook for a few minutes and reply to some messages etc. I was so incredibly shocked and saddened when I came across Robin Williams face on my news feed with a headline that he had died. At first I thought it could not be real , that it must have been a horrible mistake, no way could this funny sweet man be dead, this man who I grew up watching on television. Unfortunately it was to be true and hearts all over the world broke when they heard the news. Death is always sad but somehow for someone to take their own life who gave so much joy and laughter to others seems like a double blow.

 Depression  is a difficult if not impossible illness for some people to understand unless they have experienced it for themselves. It is not just being sad , and people cannot just forget about it or shake it off , it engulfs and darkens you to everything light and fun in the world and for me I have always called it a dark cloud and when the dark clouds came in I would sink deep into something so black I could hardly see my way back up from it. Sometimes I have almost needed to be held up until I had the strength to do it for myself, sometimes that took weeks ,sometimes months. It is always there in the background waiting for a time when I am vulnerable so I do everything I can physically do to try and keep those clouds from catching up with me by not smoking ,rarely drinking,keeping fit, exercising almost every day, eating nutritionally good food as much as possible, talking to people , writing, reading, drawing and keeping away from things that help trigger the return of those dark and dismal days. It is a tiring battle and there have been some very dark days that I did not see myself coming out off but with a lot of counselling,medication etc I am here now today and that's great , I only take each day as it comes ,and that's okay with me.
Tonight I will be watching some Robin Williams movies, reading some of his quotes and feeling grateful that I am still here where as depression and suicide has taken too many wonderful people from this world.
Mr Williams , thank you for the laughter and the movies that I will continue to watch again and again,and may you rest in peace.

Below please find a link to the Aware website which helps with coping with depression
http://www.aware.ie/